Illinois: Pulsing Light ufo

In late April of this year (April, 2008), just a little over a month ago, I noticed the following outside my house in rural small-town Illinois:

PLACE: Illinois, approximately 3.5 hours drive south of Chicago
SETTING: Virtually no light pollution. It was an unusually dark and vivid night. Sky clear and dark. Stars were easily discernable.
TIME: It was about 11 p.m.

I was a cigarrette smoker at the time. And between taking the dog out and going outside for a puff, over a number of years I had become familiar with day and night air traffic in this area.

As I was looking at an area of the sky, at about a 70 degree angle upward and due North, I saw a light appear in an area where no stars or "man-made" lights had previously been. It was much much too high for a building. And no aircraft...I am always aware of aircraft in my line of sight...had been travelling through the spot I was generally looking at, at this time. There were no clouds for the light to appear from "behind". The sky was as clear as it gets in the midwest.

Suddenly, a light PULSED three times. The pulses were seamingly measured in time: Pulse-beat-Pulse-beat-Pulse. This WAS NOT a flash. It was slower and unlike any aircraft lights I have ever seen...and I've been watching this sky above my current residence for at least 5 years. Each pulse of light lasted the same duration, about 1.5 to 2 seconds. Quite long. It appeared in the same place each time; the light was not moving along a vector.

The pulse...when it would initially appear, before reaching its largest size and then reversing the action to disappear, seemed like a star. It was about as bright and seemingly as far away.

But as the size grew during the visible light part of the pulse, it grew to about 6 to 8 times the size of any brightest star in the sky. Also, whereas a star has some "flicker" and any "edges" of the light are undefined...that is, they are imperfect, etc...this pulse was perfectly round. Like a dilating pupil.

Also, the light was brilliant. Not blinding...but very bright with no effects of "halo" or so forth in my own experience of seeing it. It was as if a hole was cut in the clear and black sky and white paper put behind it.

The meter of pulse-no light-pulse-no light-pulse-no light (it only appeared three times in one sequence) seemed mechanical or "unnatural" in uniformity. The segments during which it appeared were all of seemingly equal length and value. The light reaching the same "brightness" each time as well.

However, the light itself seemed unlike a usual light source. I mention the uniformity of the pulses...which seemed mechanical...but THE LIGHT ITSELF SEEMED...well, it seemed to be a by-product. I mean, I don't think there was something with a bulb turning energy into light. I described this to friends as similar to a sonic boom. Just as a plane doesn't have a "speaker" that amplifies the sonic boom...this light didn't seem amplified by a "bulb". I don't know how else to say it.

Then it was gone. The stars and sky just as they had been before it appeared in the center of a starless area of clear black sky.

I did a little online looking for descriptions of known aircraft lights: common anti-collision lights, etc. Nothing I've read about explains what I saw.

Then, just this past week I heard a caller on Coast to Coast call in from Chicago and explain a similar light in the "southeastern" sky, whereas, being south of Chicago, I saw the light due north.

Also, and to me more compellingly, the caller described the light as a "pulse". Significant to me, because my light also was not a "flash". I chose the term "pulse" very carefully to describe the light to my immediate family and closest friend.

If I recall, this caller also described it, nearly verbatim, as "a star but brighter". Also almost exactly as I describe my "ufo" sighting as well.

My experience was not a "freak out afterward" kind of thing. It was just very odd and I was very calm throughout and after the short sighting. again. I did have the weird sensation of seeing something that I had never seen before. As well as seeing something that first wasn't there at all...appeared three times...and then was gone once again. I scanned the sky for easily another 20 minutes and saw nothing like it.

[edit on 2-6-2008 by 2nd Hand Thoughts]